On Letting Go

There have been a number of Occupy evictions lately as part of what looks like another coordinated crack down series to "welcome" Occupy on its putative awakening after winter hibernation. It's not clear yet whether there has been a metamorphosis. Maybe it was just a molt.

I say that because of today's eviction -- well, sort of -- of Occupy DC from McPherson Square. I say "sort of" because what I saw on the UStream wasn't quite what it appeared to be. There was both deception in motive and purpose and acts of extraordinary arbitrariness.

Some tents were "cleared," for example, to the outcry of the Occupy DC crowd, and in response, apparently, the National Park Police (McPherson is a federal site) left the rest of them alone. There was nevertheless a skiploader hard at work "clearing" who knows what? "Beep-beep-beep" all the time, "beep-beep-beep". The crowd was told this was an "inspection," not an "eviction," yet they were kept back from the tents by ever-shifting lines of (rather decorative, I must say) barricades and horse police who were pooping and peeing everywhere. Nobody was on hand to clean it up, as all those who might have done were dolled up in bright yellow-orange HazMat suits poking gingerly here and there in the rubble of the encampment while the skip loaders beeped around them and the Park Police looked on impassively and unprotected, OMG!, from the ick of the Occupy.

It was simply a bizarre scene.

As it was, eventually, the park was "cleared" -- of people. There were a number of arrests, some pretty violent. Someone was apparently tasered, but I didn't see it, and someone else was apparently pulled over a (decorative) barricade to be arrested, but I didn't see that either. I did not stay glued to my monitor all day, after all. Things to do, dontuknow.

Some people were apparently allowed to stay in the park to protect the library. From what I witnessed, the whole "library episode" was quite as bizarre as everything else that went on at McPherson Park if not more so.

The whole point of the "inspection" was to ensure that there was no contraband on site, such as pillows and sleeping bags and mattresses and such due to the fact that Darrell Issa (Idiot-CA) was on the warpath in Congress over his claim that Obama had ordered the Park Police to stand down and not "enforce the anti-camping laws of This Great Nation" -- or something. I really don't know what Issa is on about at any given time. I never do. He's a jerk, everyone knows he's a jerk, and he likes being a jerk. It's an identity thing.

At any rate, the "inspection" was proceeding throughout the park, closing in on the library tent where about a dozen or so Occupy DC activists decided to Make A Stand (and bless their hearts, too.) It had started raining a slushy rain -- looked awful, I wouldn't want to be out in it -- and the multitude was in their rain ponchos sitting on the ground, refusing to move unless the library was left alone. In DC, the police do speak to the demonstrators as opposed to New York where they don't, at least not when they are engaged in an aktion, and the demonstrators were assured that there would be no attempt to harm or dismantle the Library Tent (if it passed "inspection" of course.)

Naturally, the crowd did not believe the assurances because the police had repeatedly lied to them all day, so no one was about to take their word now about the safety of what is the symbolic heart of most Occupations, The People's Library.

In New York, as we know, the People's Library appeared to have been deliberately targeted for very ostentatious destruction during the eviction from Liberty Square last November. It was really outrageous -- and very shocking -- when it happened. Symbolically, it was horrendous, and IIRC, the City of New York ultimately promised to replace the volumes that had been destroyed in the aktion. Whether they ever did so, I don't know, but the memory of the Destruction of the People's Library at Zucotti Park will live in the growing Hall of Infamy of the events surrounding the attempts to suppress the Occupy Movement.

In DC, I watched this afternoon (on the UStream) as a very kindly and very polite park policeman asked the librarian if he could "inspect" the tent. The librarian (I believe his name was Eric) was very courteous and polite himself, and he cooperated by taking down plastic tarps that had been hung to protect the books -- looked like there were perhaps a thousand or more, very neatly arranged in crates and on shelves and tables -- and as he went from one section to another exposing the books and explaining what else there was in the tent, the policeman "inspected" and eventually declared himself satisfied, the People's Library had passed "inspection."

This was supposed to be the signal for the sitting demonstrators to leave now, but they were disinclined to do so until they were informed that two of the Occupy DC number, including Eric, could stay behind to protect the Library. Only then, would the demonstrators agree to leave. They were apparently given assurances that once the "inspection" was complete, the park would be re-opened to the public, but as soon as they were out, the barricades went up and no one was allowed into the park.

All the Occupy DC people had been pushed out into the slushy rain and the street. I believe it was K Street, too. Heh.

At any rate, they milled around for a while then held a General Assembly that was mostly Open Forum where people discussed the events of the day, what went well, what didn't, and how the situation could be improved. There were many offers of housing for the night, though some were going over to Freedom Plaza encampment -- which was still operating.

During the "inspection" food was served by volunteers, and apparently the City made some accommodations available for the homeless. The whole thing was kind of surreal and bizarre. It seems very late in the game to be conducting evictions, the point of which has never been clear in any case. The stated premise -- to "clean" -- is patent;y and obviously false.The use of HazMat suits is clearly about theater, not "safety." As the crowd was being held behind barricades they did a series of mic check testimonies about Why They Occupy, some of which included concern for public worker livelihoods and pensions -- which are under perpetual threat by the likes of Darrell Issa -- and plenty of Democrats, too, let it be said.

Despite the arrests and the occasional police brutality -- seemingly quite casual and even unintentional (I said it seemed bizarre) -- there was none of the incredible level of outrage and violent attacks on demonstrators that characterized evictions in New York, LA, Oakland, Seattle, etc. It's a different atmosphere in DC. As I've said many times DC's culture is that of the Palace, and the denizens there are socialized to a very ritualized courtly behavior that can certainly get nasty and injurious to person or reputation, but which is nevertheless bound by rules and conventions as strict as any at Versailles.

In the end, the crowd disappeared from the scene, much of their stuff still behind the barricades in the Park. The UStreamer I was watching most, Nate of OccupiedAir, gave a wrapup description of the day's events and before he signed off with a view of the park from across K Street, someone offered him a place to stay for the night (he'd already received three packs of cigarettes, which he of course distributed to those in need of nicotine). And that was that.

I watched all this unfold (at least as much of it as I did watch, maybe an aggregate of three hours -- the aktion went on for at least twelve, but as is the case with Revolution in real life, there was a lot of just standing around... ) with a kind of tired despair.

There has been no actual public need to evict any of the Occupations, nor has there been any public need to prevent them from Occupying in the first place (prevention being the objective of authorities where I am). As many observers have recognized, the public interest would have been better served by simply leaving the Occupations alone (as happened in Davis recently when a building was temporarily occupied by activists) rather than conducting these repeated raids and assaults and violent -- or not so violent as the case may be -- evictions.

Every Occupation has been organized as an intentional community specifically designed to serve unmet public needs, whether feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or sheltering the homeless, among other things like providing educational opportunities, entertainment, and space for the development of a democratic alternative to our clearly broken political system. The alternatives to the way-things-are that were being developed in New York were astonishing in scope, from bicycle powered generators to alternative systems of finance and banking. The creativity and the social innovation shown by the Occupy System -- if you want to call it that -- has an extraordinary public value, and every time an Occupation is destroyed, literally vandalized and bulldozed into oblivion in yet another example of Eviction Theater, all that public interest energy of development is (at least temporarily) lost.

In those cities where Occupations have been left alone or even been supported by civic authorities, they have proved invaluable assets to the public good.

But instead, Authority believes it MUST harass and eventually crack down and destroy. The symbolism is heavy with the negative memories of dictatorships and totalitarian systems that we all thought had been vanquished a generation ago -- but apparently not. Maybe they weren't vanquished at all.

Today's eviction was surreal to my eye in part because of its seeming arbitrary conduct, but also because it was pure ritual; there was no ultimate point to it, except to assert the Authority of the Park Police at the behest of one of the jerkiest elected representatives in the country. Just as none of these evictions (or preventions for that matter) has never really been necessary or been in the public interest, today's wasn't either.

Ultimately, civic and national authorities who conduct these aktions will be as discredited as Oakland's police and officials are after their repeated violent assaults on and failed attempts at suppression of Occupy Oakland.

What we see is a rotting system is the process of collapse. There is a Revolution going on, everywhere around the world simultaneously, and I think the operators of this system know it, and they know they can't win through suppression and violence, nor can they win through ever-more bizarre exercises like the one I witnessed today in Washington DC. (All well-deserved kudos, by the way, to the livestreamers.)

The game may not be quite over, yet, but we can see the finish line. The oppressors are to the point now that they aren't even trying. They're just going through the motions; at least that's what I saw in DC. This was not only Theater, it was Theater of the Increasingly Absurd.

The answer, of course, is "Letting Go." Surrender in the Buddhist sense.

Many of the Occupiers already know how to do that and they know what a positive spirit results. At some point, we can't say exactly when, but I wouldn't be surprised if it as soon as this summer, our civic and national leaders will need to get right with themselves and the public and do likewise.

What Are They So Afraid Of?

[Note: I'm at our place in New Mexico; we just had a doozy of a snow storm that shut down the Interstate all the way to the Texas border. The weather has been beautiful today, and I've spent most of it clearing the driveway of snow so I can get to the street, the street that was just plowed a little while ago, so we could very carefully drive along its still very slick surface to see the sights. It is a Winter Wonder Land out there!]



The Denver Action to "clear" Occupy Denver and their associated tents from the square last night caught my eye. I kept thinking, "What are they so afraid of?" -- meaning the cops. It's not so much that they doll themselves up like RoboCops. We're used to that by now. It's not even the fact that they always seem to arrive and act in formations following a strange little script of how to proceed against the Rabble. It's that they do it at all. Any of it.

It's not just Denver. They do it everywhere, all around the world. What are they so afraid of? And why to they do it at all?

I saw this picture at the Denver Post site, and thought, "Look how scary. He's posing like Tebow. In the street. How frightening..."



What are they so afraid of?


Hundreds of costumed and armed Denver police once again assembled -- this time under the watchful gaze of the new Denver police chief -- to evict a few dozen Occupy Denver demonstrators. A camera man had come to video the action and was guided away from the park by the police.

Flames rose when the demonstrators chose to burn some of their encampment equipment. But there was no violence from the demonstrators. As usual, the violence was perpetrated by the police against... their perception of defiance.

Defiance requires hundreds of police in riot costume in city after city to suppress -- or to appear to suppress -- while high level crime is... ignored. No, staying in a park after curfew requires an entire army of police. Anything else of a criminal nature, not so much.

Even a full scale sports riot doesn't usually call for this level of suppression.

The only comparable suppressive activity that I know of is the extraordinary level of police overreaction at every G8, G20, WTO, IMF, and political convention held since 1999.

Occupying parks and other public squares is being treated as if it were a National Special Security Event.

The Rulers are so frightened of defiance, they will go to any length to suppress it.

And apparently they will pay any price.

So long as their troops obey...

Sleep Deprivation and Independent Media and The Dawning

Tim Pool, video streamer for OWS during the recent eviction and its aftermath

During the ongoing saga that is the Occupy Wall Street Movement (becoming a Revolution -- aka: "Occupy") the video streams have been the main way to gain on-the-spot visual news of what's really going on in the Movement.

I became an early devotee to OWS's Livestreams through Global Revolution out of New York. They were the main means I had of touching base, as it were, with the General Assemblies and the formation of Working Groups and the sights and sounds -- if not exactly the smells -- of the scene on the Plaza and the marches.

And, as soon as other Occupies got going, I tuned in to whatever video streaming they were able to manage, which put me front and center with some of the more astonishing developments -- and struggles -- within the movement. I won't detail all of them here, because that's not the point of this post, but I'll just say that without the video streaming from the Occupations themselves, I would know next to nothing about any of them. As it is, I've become familiar with quite a few and have come to recognize participants all over the country, which is part of what has clued me to the fact that this is a very profound and ultimately can be a very productive Movement that really IS 'Teh Revolution' I have been blathering about one day coming. It's here. It's real. It's now.

But I pretty much abandoned NYC's video stream weeks and weeks ago -- ages in Revolution time -- because it was completely unreliable; when it was on at all, it was usually extremely choppy, and often it was simply useless. This struck me as strange, since Livestreaming and other video streams were crucial for the public's understanding of what it was like during the North African and some of the European uprisings, and -- except when the Governments interfered -- they seemed to work fine with little or no choppiness, pixelation, or irrelevance. But New York's Livestream channels were almost always fraught with extraordinary bad luck. Sometimes they would only work for seconds at a time and then be down for hours. And then when a stream was up again, it would run re-runs or other feeds or whatever was available but nothing live. I saw from some of their records that they spent tens of thousands of dollars on new equipment and they were constantly getting donations of more. But the streams still sucked.

I really did come to believe that there was serious sabotage going on, because none of the other streams I was checking had nearly as many severe problems as NYC's did. Every other city I checked that had a video stream had relatively minor problems that seemed related more to the fact that amateurs were trying to figure out how best to work it, but they did work. Not OWS in New York. There were sometimes alternate NYC channels that seemed to work fine, but they were temporary at best, often just fleeting hit and run or one-off type documentation. But OWS's own streams never worked well for very long.

So it was kind of amazing when I found a link to Wearetheother99.com's videostream from New York on Monday morning after the Raid. According to what I've been able to find out on their website, they've been streaming all along -- since day one? -- but I never knew about it. There was no indication in any of the information I was accumulating that there even was this particular video stream. It was certainly not mentioned in any of the OWS streaming that I was aware of. That doesn't mean there was actually no mention of it; it means that I didn't see it, and given the nature of the operation, it's easy to miss something. There are many places where information is stored and retrieved from; you just have to keep looking -- or in my case, stop looking, and concentrate on those places where I could find information: the OWS Website and the NYCGA Website, along with Occupy Together. Of course, they weren't necessarily reliable either! NYCGA's is particularly dicey because it has gone through repeated redesigns that require constant renavigation and have resulted in the loss of plenty of documentation that once was there.

So, back to my topic; got off track there for a little bit. The image above is a screen grab of Tim Pool from last night. He was just about to sign off after more than 19 hours' video streaming what was going on in New York. As I say, I only found the link to this stream on Monday morning, and that only by chance. The OWS Livestreams were as sucky as ever when they were working at all. Somebody posted a link to Wearetheother99's videostream in some chat, I don't think it was even OWS's, I think I was checking Berkeley at the time, and I clicked the link. Sure enough; Tim Pool was on his way to Zuccotti, having marched to Trinity Church and then when he learned that there was a TRO that allowed demonstrators back in the Plaza, he headed back to Zuccotti (as he called it, he rarely referred to it as Liberty anything) with a large contingent of those who had gone to Trinity as an alternate site. (Visualize Lower Manhattan and you'll get an idea of how these locations relate to each other. Or Google it up... I've been down there a few times in my life, and even though I haven't been there in many years, the layout is still pretty easy to picture in my mind's eye.)

On the march back to Zuccotti, he was explaining what had happened, and this was the first clear reporting of the events of the night before I had heard; there were sketchy "news" reports that the OWS Occupation had been raided, and I'd seen Amy Goodman's "aftermath" report -- which was horrifying -- but I'd heard and seen nothing much from those who had actually been there, nor was it clear at the time what people were going to do about it.

Tim had been there from just after 1am, and he had stayed with the OWS participants, video-streaming the whole time, from that point. On the march back to the Plaza, he inadvertently gave out his phone number, and since he was using his smart phone as the video-stream camera, the stream got cut off repeatedly every time a call came in. He stopped at a Sprint store on the way back to the Plaza and got his number changed so that he could keep streaming. Then his batteries were dying despite the fact that he had been given a heavy backpack full of equipment by Justin (Wedes -- his interview with Amy Goodman is posted below) and was using Justin's MacBook as a trickle charger for his phone camera. He asked if anyone could get him another battery as he didn't think he would have enough charge to get back to the Plaza. In fact, people did get him batteries, and he did get back to the Plaza and a few minutes downtime while he changed batteries, he was continuously streaming until well after 10:00pm EST Tuesday night.

Because his was the only reliable video stream on the scene, it was picked up by Time.com, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, and apparently was being mirrored all over the Livestream network. He had over 11,000 viewers on his own channel, but with all these others tagging along, he figured there might have been 100,000 viewers overall. There may have been many more than that.

And he was -- of course -- completely sleep-deprived, hungry, thirsty and exhausted. He was also lugging Justin's heavy bag around with him. He became so tired, he could barely walk, but he kept streaming, kept interviewing people, kept looking for news he could share. This heavy bag of Justin's was an incredible burden however, and it became something of a metaphor for all the "stuff" that had been accumulating at Zuccotti during the Occupation, nearly all of which was swept away by the Raid. Most of it apparently swept away and hauled off to the dump -- after promises were made that personal property could be retrieved at such and such a location after such and such a time.

That was the scene that Amy Goodman had shown -- huge mounds of debris being loaded into garbage trucks for disposal, most of consisting of the personal property of the Occupiers who had been dispossessed and evicted.

Tim lost his tent and everything in it in the Raid, but he had his own video-stream equipment, his innate communications skill and he was Carrying On -- and also carrying Justin's heavy bag. The search for Justin became an integral part of the saga Tim was transmitting. The rumor was that Justin had been arrested, but no one knew for sure. The Bag, though, was becoming an intolerable burden; Tim could not go on any longer carrying it -- he'd been carrying it for 17 hours and it was HEAVY. Finally, he encountered one of Justin's friends; she didn't know where he was. She tried calling him on her phone, but there was no response. I believe they texted him as well, with no luck. She said she would take The Bag, though, and make sure Justin got it since she knew where he lived (in Brooklyn or The Bronx, I don't recall off hand).

Tim was so relieved. EVERYONE watching was so relieved. It was Liberation. And it was a similar sense of Liberation to that of the renewed Occupation of Zuccotti, without all the appurtenances that had built up over the past two months. Many of those who lost some personal property in the Raid seemed to realize they were Liberated from Things now and could concentrate more on Doing.

What the Occupy Movement is in many ways is a Demonstration of how to be and do another world -- as Gandhi said, "Be the change you seek in the world." The Demonstration at Zuccotti was one thing, but much of it could be done anywhere. It didn't have to be solely in the Plaza. In fact, most of that Demonstration -- of another way of being and doing -- didn't have to be in that Plaza at all, it could be anywhere in the city or ultimately anywhere in the world.

Having and holding a space, a place, was important, and despite his exhaustion and sleep deprivation, Tim was documenting the excitement and determination of getting the Space back. But he was also noting and showing the realization among many that the Space and the Demonstration were not necessities for one another.

This is a powerful realization, one that was already being made in Oakland, though not quite as clearly and concretely, after their Raid and dispossession. In Oakland, the Raid that destroyed their camp the second time was greeted with an almost festive -- certainly not a fearful -- air. And that Raid, too, was documented by an outstanding -- and massively sleep deprived -- videostreamer named Spencer, who goes by OakFoSho on Ustream. He then headed off to Berkeley to document their Occupation, which I was watching early this morning.

In Berkeley, too, there seemed to be a growing recognition that having and holding Space was important -- and they were allowed to stay on Sproul Plaza by the very polite police, at least for the night -- but that the Demonstration that Another World Is Possible could happen anywhere.

The Space is Important, but the Demonstration is even more important.

I have nothing but praise for Tim and Spencer and the video-streamers who have been working so hard everywhere to get the real news out rather than the ridiculous "narrative" of the MSM. The contrast couldn't be more startling. And they are all doing it as dedicated amateurs with often very limited or primitive equipment, under difficult and dangerous circumstances with few if any pecuniary rewards.

This is Independent Media. And this is the Future.

The Revolutionary Future. Strap in. The ride is gonna get bumpier...

"Y'all Breakin' the Law"

Oakland now. The Plaza is surrounded by police in riot gear. Most of them have no identification showing, no names, no police agency, nothing -- which is against the law in California.

The Ustream is here:



An "aktion" is expected momentarily.

Keeping Track of the Occupation Evictions

Yesterday and last night, city officials in Oakland distributed "eviction notices" to the Occupiers of Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza at City Hall. Most of these notices were wadded up and thrown away in the dark. The lights haven't been on at the Plaza for several days, one of the "difficulties" officials have used to disrupt Occupations (they've used it in Sacramento and many other places as well). The tension level in Oakland is very high; people there have been expecting another violent police raid for days, with many unmet predictions of same flying through the Twitterverse every day.

Anyone who is watching knows this is psy-ops, of course; "preparing the battle space." The point is to demoralize the foe. It usually works. And when it doesn't, there are plenty of other means and methods available to vanquish the Enemy.

I saw what was for me the first reference to the Occupiers as "terrorists" (with whom one "does not negotiate") the other day, and I thought, "Well, it was bound to come to this; surprised it didn't happen sooner." It probably has happened previously; I just hadn't noticed before.

Terrorists, militarized police forces, psy-ops, "battle space..."

Evictions.

This is the language of the 1% -- this is how they see their objectives now. They are operating on the assumption that nothing has changed, and they can continue their wars of aggression domestically without any opposition they need pay attention to.

They are intent on continuing their authority and rule without adjusting anything.

Someone over at dKos has been keeping track of the evictions as of yesterday:

Fri Nov 11, 2011 at 05:22 PM PST

33 Occupy Evictions: Evicting Our Rights - Add Salt Lake City, Halifax, Paris, Berlin, Honolulu

Generally speaking, the evictions are not resisted violently at all. In Oakland, the lying muthafucker interim police chief has made many assertions about the "violence" of the Occupiers, and though he has been shouted down at several of his appearances, his lies are largely unchallenged.

And those lies have become part of the fabric of argument -- or at least rhetoric -- against the Occupations and the Occupiers.

• The Occupiers and Occupations are violent. This is the core assertion of Howard Jordan, and it is a simple, bald-faced lie. He gets away with it by making rather vague claims of "objects" being thrown at his Brave Officers, objects including kitchen utensils, which everyone knows are dangerous. Witnesses have said that no objects were thrown at officers in Oakland prior to the assaults by police.
  
  The only visual evidence I've seen of "thrown objects" in Oakland has been of paint thrown on officers who were attacking demonstrators in the streets on the afternoon of October 25; of tear gas canisters thrown back at officers after the evening assault on demonstrators; and objects (including tear gas canisters) thrown at officers on the night of November 2 after their assault began.
  
  In other words, I have seen no visual evidence that anything was thrown at officers in Oakland before they began assaulting demonstrators and performing evictions. Given the fact that hundreds of demonstrators have been wounded in Oakland -- but no police have been (at least not so there is any evidence of it -- Jordan, being a very practiced liar, claims there have been police injuries but has never produced any evidence thereof)
  
  
• The Occupations and Occupiers are uncleanly. Variation: They poop and pee all over the place. I first encountered this canard while virtually attending the Occupy Austin festivities via the Livestream. There was an order issued from the City to vacate the City Hall premises so that the PowerWashers could be brought in to cleanse the befoulment that had taken place. Occupy Austin folks blamed "certain types" who weren't "part" of the Occupation, but who came by every day for the free food and other goodies, and everyone knew they repaid the kindness of these Occupy strangers with pooping and peeing in the shrubbery and on the pavement. Everyone knew it. When I heard this bullshit, I said to myself, "Well, Austin is in Texas and Texas is in the South, and practically everyone in the South believes that some people aren't people at all and they know who these animals are, oh yes, and everyone knows these animals poop and pee all over creation. Remember the Superdome? Katrina? Yesss. The stories of the excrement and the urine! Oh my yes! Those Animals! And remember the stories of all those dead bodies piled up like cordwood in amongst the poop and the pee? Remember the babies being raped and then their heads bashed against the concrete. Sure! They were ANIMALS at the Superdome! Animals!" Of course absolutely NONE of it was true. It was all made up bullshit -- a lot of it came right out of Rich Lowry's Blackberry, too. But a considerable part of this mythology comes from deep in the racist Southern psyche. They believe -- especially white folks, but not exclusively -- that the "nigruhs" are literally nothing but animals, and if it weren't for the strict watch they're under, they'd just go hog-wild.
  
  Same with the White-Trash. They're all nothin' but Animals.
  
  So, comes the Occupations, and guess what? Many of them are at least temporary home place for all kinds of excluded and rejected (un)members of society. And by definition of some included members of society, these (un)members are "animals" -- therefore they must poop and pee, rape and destroy; it is what they do and who they are.
  
  Even if they aren't that bad, they make a mess (which is often true enough.) And The Occupation Mess cannot be tolerated. Never mind the much greater mess the Occupiers are protesting.
  
  This is actually very obvious in Oakland. I'm finding myself feeling a good deal of empathy for the predicament the officials in Oakland find themselves in. Oakland has serious economic and social problems that have been dealt with for years with official brutality and violence (including murder), through currying favor with the high and the mighty, and through rituals of civic exclusion that have left the city a sort of empty husk with a handful of corporate interests calling the tunes for the city "leaders" to follow. They have done their best. They really believe that. And it's come to this. A rag-tag assembly on the steps of City Hall, calling them out and calling them FAILURES. In fact... I think they know they have failed, miserably, and they don't know what to do about it except lash out at any convenient target.
  
  Ah! The Occupy! Yes! Scapegoat them! It's heartbreaking in a way, because they have, they really have, tried so hard to please the People Who Matter, and if that meant that the People of Oakland were left out or neglected, Oh Well, too bad, so sad; there are more important things for The Fair City of Oakland to worry about. There are. Really. And so here's this encampment staring them down for once: "What's more important than the People?"
  
  For all the brickbats hurled at Jean Quan, she really does seem to have a semblance of a conscience. She really does seem to be trying to "balance" the needs of the People Who Matter and the People. And realistically, it's too late for that. It can't be done.
  
  The People Who Matter need to step back; the People need to step up -- and if the People Who Matter insist on sending the Goons to trash and destroy and bang away again with their flash-bangs and gas grenades, then I don't doubt that we will be very close to an end game.
  
  I don't know how it will end.
  
  
• The Occupations aren't safe. Not only do people die at these things (a man was found dead at the edge of the Plaza in Sacramento two weeks ago, but it didn't make The News at that time because these deaths weren't yet part of the Narrative of Unsafety) people get crazy and do drugs and sometimes they fire up portable stoves and barbecues, and gosh knows, they run electrical cable from generators that run on gasoline, and damn all they even welcome homeless people and shhhhh, criminals! Yep.
  
  So it's not Safe on its face, and bluntly put, there is no element of "safety" in what these people are doing in any shape or form. They're deliberately throwing away "safety" -- at least temporarily -- for...freedom. What a concept. Freedom especially to speak their mind about horrifying and worsening conditions for the many, and freedom to demonstrate some of the possible ways to fix it.
  
  "Safety" is not their concern, otherwise they would not be doing this at all.
  
  Isn't that clear yet? And homeless people and criminals and the excluded and the rejected of all kinds have come together to find some way forward that actually serves the interests and needs of the People as opposed to the handful of "Persons" who now control our governments.
  
  It's interesting to me that in response to this lack of "safety" in the Occupation camps, Authority decides it is best to beat and gas and grenade and arrest the activists in their hundreds and thousands... what's wrong with this picture? We know there is something wrong here, but what can it be? Whatever can it be?

It's clear that there is a coordinated -- and apparently global -- effort to dismantle the Occupation Movement, somewhat as if it were a terrorist operation. And the way this is going, we're liable to see a great deal more official violence before the end of the year.

I've said that we'd start seeing some of the issues raised by the Occupy Movement addressed sometime next year as part of the election campaigning, but so far, the governments -- and the banks that own them -- have turned their backs on the call. They do not believe they need to listen to or serve the People in any way. Because they have long believed, sincerely, that the People will do nothing about it that they have to pay attention to.

Except that now the People are doing something about it.

We'll see what happens with the next round of evictions.